Fatiguetasy

Sometimes tiredness unlocks a mythical storehouse.  During normal days, it's passed by unseen.  Even during demanding moments of normal days, it's still passed by unseen.  Even during abnormal climatic events preceded by months of exacting preparation, it's passed by unseen.  One does not simply march up to this storehouse, one does not ask about this storehouse and get directions, one does not beg and plead for this storehouse successfully.  In the middle of a harsh barren desert, it is invisible and without coordinates.

Sometimes--not always, after an indeterminate time and discomfort and weariness meandering in this desert, the storehouse manifests.  It remains invisible, along with its treasure; the latter can't quite be described because it is not accessed in the presence of a clear mind, but it is basically a peculiar form of endorphin.  Not the usual vigorous and sharper-edged pain eraser, but a golden lit fog that dissolves one's mind and bones and mass and aches ever so gradually and imperceptibly.

I was tired this morning due to issues, and I didn't feel like running, but this was the morning to undergo the Triplet.  The first quarter mile or so of the trail is actually mostly flat, and fatigue forced me into a gauzy lazy pace, and I wistfully longed for several more mostly flat miles for an hour or so of wisping along.  That would have been perfect.  I was so tired, I mostly felt hollow.

The trail started the first of its inadvertent accents, and still I mostly felt hollow but benevolently weightless, even when I got to the slow long climb in the middle.  Fatigue silenced Ego, and I shuffled up in a mindless sort of bliss and then down, and up, without any perceptible change of exertion until I got to the steep pre-Triplet hill.  After that, I was breathing hard at last, and I was even more tired.

The Triplet was mailed in, not even by me.  I was there, I went over its steep hills, I got even more tired during it, but I couldn't feel my core, I couldn't activate the pistons, I couldn't dig deep to any muscular anguish.  The Triplet jacked up my cardio output, that's all.  It seemed to take twice as long, but I had nothing to push against.  The dog sympathetically stayed by my side during the third pass.

 During the portions in between, I tripped over a root, and I also stepped on one end of a branch and slammed the other end against my shin; there is a lot of debris in that unused corner of the forest, but usually I handle it better.  I just wasn't picking up my feet that much today.

We finished the Triplet and I picked the least of the slow long hills back to the main trail, still a formidable stretch normally after the exhausting Triplet, but I shuffled up it without the usual fatigue.  I shuffled back up the main trail main ascent and it wasn't until I hit the long downhill portion that I realized that I'd reentered the storehouse.  I remained in the transfixing haze for two more loops of the main trail.  It probably would have remained longer, and I considered enjoying its comfort during an additional loop, but doubts coaxed me home.  I couldn't be greedy.  If the door of the storehouse slammed shut, I'd be left parched in that desert of suffering.   Instead, I wafted home without exiting.

The closest approximation I can think of, in laymen's terms, is spending a lovely sunny day outside at a festival with friends.  There might be alcohol, there might not be--the important factor is the aimless and delicious lassitude.  A bit of Frisbee, a bit of napping on the grass, a bit of food, no plans, no sharp mental edges or impulse, just complete contentment.

I got home and switched gears.  Today was the day for leg exercises.   My squats were on.  I put the final plates on for the deadlifts, and they felt ever so much clearer too.  Discomfort was sharper and more localized--I think I could use even more weight to target it better, but that will have to wait.  The odd thing I finally noticed, I think (have I written about this before?) is that I exhale during the deadlifts.  It's a sharp, core-clenching exhale, but it seems counterintuitive.  Every single torso ascending/unfolding yoga move I can think of uses an inhalation.  I inhale during squats.   However, I tried inhaling during a couple of deadlifts, and it felt horribly foreign.

And then the daily double.  I've also noticed something about my right shoulder issue.  Part of it might be due to extra flexibility.  It's really flexible, much more than the left side.  It's unbalanced.  It's almost as if I can ease it into a semi-dislocation--it looks really strange.  And whatever's going on tends to start to happen during pushups when I get tired, and then this is accompanied by the advent of the SVT trigger.  Something is going out of place and putting pressure on something else, and I end up feeling as though the flutter is going to kick off, and occasionally it has.  Updog is sometimes a problem as well as pushups.  I've noticed this pressured prelude before but never realized my shoulder's involvement.

At any rate, I've gotten all of my weight sessions for the week out of the way because we are going to the beach!  All I have to do now is finally complete my lab reports.  Might be an all-nighter with some choice language directed at a certain graphical program--oh, why won't you derive that final last function I need?  What is the magic symbol?  Let me totally unspool myself on the beach tomorrow, why won't you?